Sunday, July 24, 2011

Compared to some bestselling thriller writers, we sell Daniel Silva pretty well. What we noticed, though, was that our first week's pop for Portrait of a Spy was a bit higher than it was for his last, The Rembrandt Affair. Is this an affect of picking up some Borders customers? Is it long term or transitional?

Hardcover Fiction:
1. The Borrower, by Rebecca Makkai
2. Portrait of a Spy, by Daniel Silva
3. The Last Werewolf, by Glen Duncan
4. A Dance with Dragons, by George R.R. Martin
5. The Paris Wife, by Paula McLain

In other news, Rebecca Makkai told me that she is taking into consideration the idea that her character Lucy (from The Borrower) should date Dean Bakopoulos's Zeke (from My American Unhappiness, which was #9 this week). If I were active on Twitter, I guess this wouldn't be news to me.

It was very nice to officially meet Christel Maass, whose book, Illuminating the Particular, is a wonderful collection of photographs of Milwaukee's South Side by Roman Krasniewski. In "I can't decide what the heck this is" news, I decided to categorize Go the F*ck to Sleep as nonfiction this week.

Paperback Fiction
1. A Game of Thrones, by George R.R. Martin
2. The Help, by Kathryn Stockett
3. Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, by Tom Franklin
4. Room, by Emma Donoghue
5. A Visit from the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan

I've been doing a lot of outreach to German groups for our event with Oliver Pötzsch and The Hangman's Daughter on August 4 (thanks, Jim!) I'm glad to say that his book is our #6 paperback fiction this week.

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. The Available Parent, by John Duffy
2. Creating Dairyland, by Edward Janus
3. North Point Historic District, by Shirley McArthur
4. Last Call, by Daniel Okrent
5. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot

The YWCA is already promoting their Evening to Promote Racial Justice on December 7 with keynote speaker Rebecca Skloot. Here's the link. I have hardly anounced any of our fall events at all, as just about every one needs some sort of t crossed and i dotted.

I guess that info about Potter ebooks being available only on Pottermore was a bit premature, as there is now a deal in the works with Google Ebooks, which is the system we use at Boswell.

Oh, and the Bug Eyes are selling well too.

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Associated Press reporter Chris Talbott spoke with Ann Patchett about her new venture, Parnassus Books, which is slowly taking shape in Nashville. I am linking to it because a) the whole thing is very cool b) I wanted to let Ms. Hayes know that the Unemployed Philosophers Guild plush writers are now available at Ingram, though it's pretty easy to order direct--the minimums are small and they are VERY fast c) I am mentioned in it and I wanted to thank Ms. Patchett and Mr. Talbott for including me. I have no idea if it made it into many print newspapers, but it sure is on a lot of websites. I'm linking to the New York Daily News, because when I was a child, I liked to look at the globe in their lobby.